Hand Luggage: A Memoir in Verse
- ISBN-10
- 1122949782
- ISBN-13
- 9781122949781
- Category
- Poetry
- Pages
- 96
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-05-14
- Publisher
- The Porcupine's Quill
- Author
- Patricia Kathleen Page
Description
It has become customary in Canada to describe P. K. Page as ‘distinguished’, but that epithet betrays her. P. K. Page is simply too vivacious, too cunning, too elusive, to be monumentalized. She is in fact the supreme escape artist of our literature. Try to confine her in a villanelle and she scampers off into free verse. Peg her as a prose poet and she springs forth with a glosa. Categorize her as a poet who writes fiction but then note that you find very little ‘poet’s prose’ in her stories. Her characters are often incised with acid and a cruelly keen burin. She is the shrewdest of observers but at the same time she celebrates life, low and high, in all its manifestations. One of the finest and most distinctive Canadian poets, P. K. Page is no provincial. She is a citizen not merely of the world, but of the earth. Starting in Calgary in the twenties, the young P K Page discovered first horses and then the pre-Raphaelites in cheap reproductions. In the thirties it was London, then back to the Maritimes and war and the distance of accented radio broadcasts from overseas. In the forties, in Montreal, there was snow as high as a house, cocoa at Murray’s on Sherbrooke Street and poems by Frank Scott and Abe Klein read aloud in rented rooms. In the fifties, marriage to Arthur Irwin and thence to Australia by steamer via Aden, Port Said and Ceylon. Kangaroos and platypus and tea with the wives of diplomats. Perth to Melbourne by train. Alice Springs, Kalgoorli and Ayers Rock. Briefly, New Guinea. Then Brazil, a pet marmoset christened B Fledermouse and drinks with Margot Fonteyn on the beach at Copacobana. From the sublime, to the ridiculous -- an honour guard of mariachis poised to greet John Diefenbaker in the shadow of Popocatepetl. The posting to Mexico was the last. Her memoir ranges from the trivial – the condition of pipes and wiring in embassy homes – to the profound, her persistent search for spiritual certainty. P. K. Page met many of the dominant figures of the twentieth century, including Nehru, DeGaulle, Mountbatten, Tito and the Kennedys. But above all, she celebrates the senses, the beauty of it all. Towards the end of a long and passionate life, Page shares in a most engaging form the highlights of a life lived to the full.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Penguin's Poems for Life
By Laura Barber... Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, ... A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, I mark'd where on a ...
-
Penguin's Poems by Heart
By Laura BarberAn anthology of some of the best English poems.
-
Scales of the Dragon
By James TimberlakeCombining journal entries, poetry and formal e-mails, these books celebrate the sights, sounds, flavors, (and the physical and mental strain), of crossing mountains, rolling landscapes, and unchanged rural villages, as well as vibrant ...
-
Upon This Stoney Holy Year
By James TimberlakeThere are no Formal E-mails, no Definitions, no Autobiography or Research here. And because of all that it is not, this book completes those first two in the pilgrimage series in a gentle way.
-
Heaven Is My Real Home: Volume 1
By Karen FreemanKaren Freeman! Was born August 22, 1950 in Newark New Jersey. She had a “BRIGHT” daughter named Kira. She Married Warren W. C. Freeman March 1, 1998. They were married for 13 years and 20 days. She “PASSED-ON” March 21, 2011.
-
Battle Dress: Poems
By Karen SkolfieldWinner of the Massachusetts Book Award "A terrific and sometimes terrifying collection—morally complex, rhythmic, tough-minded, and original." —Rosanna Warren, 2018 Barnard Women Poets Prize citation In a poetic voice at once accessible ...
-
Glossator 9: Pearl
By Karl Steel, David Coley, Daniel RemeinO. D. Macrae Gibson points out that the function of pyȝt as a concatenating word stresses its capacity to mean both arrayed and set.8 Gordon glosses the word as varying in sense throughout the poem between “set,” “fixed,” and “adorned” ...
-
The Truth
By Karen Michelle ThompsonThis riveting poetry collection is a fresh and witty account of thoughts and experiences that everyday people have in their day-to-day lives.
-
Heart on Fire
By Karen Teich ClusterSELL. IT. SOMEWHERE. ELSE. Well, you can take your good looks somewhere else Cuz they're not for sale 'round here... I've heard about you and the things you do And I don't need you anywhere near. Yeah, I've met your kind a time or two ...
-
Lerna, a Preclassical Site in the Argolid: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens
By American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Jeremy B. Rutter, Elizabeth BanksI was indeed fortunate in being able to recruit a pair of talented , conscientious , and unfailingly cheerful draftsmen in the persons of Julie Baker and Kathi Donahue ( now Sherwood ) to collaborate with my wife , Sally , in producing ...